29. Attacking Cops For Fun
Nowadays, we take it for granted that assaulting a police officer is a serious crime. That was not always the case. During the Victorian era, the violence against police was not always instrumental, such as attempts to free somebody known to the assailants from the police. Instead, violence was often visited upon the Bobbies for the sheer fun of it. Many Londoners enjoyed leading policemen on merry chases, while others simply attacked them out of the blue.
More creative were some gangs of working-class youths, who often collaborated to set up ambushes for police, baiting the cops into chasing them down alleys and footpaths strung with trip wires. The wires’ release would spring Looney Tunes-type booby traps, causing bricks to smash into the cops, or tipping buckets of refuse to fall upon their heads.